No Images? Click here 30 OCTOBERFirst impeachment vote ThursdayThe US House of Representatives will take its first formal vote Thursday on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Democratic leaders, who have resisted a floor vote on the impeachment inquiry for weeks, made the announcement Monday that the vote will lay out the rules for conducting the impeachment investigation in public. “This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the president and his counsel,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in her letter to colleagues this week. The rules will also allow staff aides of the House Intelligence Committee to question witnesses directly during public hearings, The New York Times reports. NEWS WRAPUS-Australia alliance more important than ever: Payne
He should have been killed years ago, another president should have gotten him. President Donald Trump on the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ANALYSISThe geographic limits of one unconventional presidential bidElliott Brennan Paige Remington New York businessman and entrepreneur Andrew Yang's unconventional bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination was supposed to be a long-shot campaign. But in recent months Yang has secured relatively strong polling figures, booming fundraising numbers and a dedicated base of niche supporters whose overriding connection to each other is the fact that they discovered Yang online. Yang's campaign has drawn on elements of both Trump and Bernie Sanders' 2016 electoral bids. Like Trump, he comes from well outside the realm of politics and purports to be bringing a business sensibility to the top office. His campaign, though, is ideas-driven. Its main vehicle, the Freedom Dividend – a revamped take on a universal basic income – is not dissimilar in scale and ambition to the Democratic Socialism that Sanders deployed to rock the party establishment back in 2016. Perhaps the best measure of the rise of Yang is where he stood on the Democratic debate platform two weeks ago: off the left shoulder of Elizabeth Warren, between Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke. That's a position directly comparable to Kamala Harris’, to the right of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. In a field with two clear favourites (Biden and Warren), Yang finds himself firmly in the second tier. This is a tier former presidents Clinton and Obama could have counted themselves among in the lead up to their respective election years. But Yang’s challenge is larger than those past. To pull off a momentum-grabbing result early in the primary voting process, he will have to master a crucial element of American elections that has thus far eluded him: geography. Traditionally, success in the early polling states of Iowa and New Hampshire is an essential stepping stone in the race to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Iowa’s vote on February 3 and New Hampshire’s vote on February 11 are signal boosters. They provide the first indications of a candidate’s viability and capture the attention of the nation’s press. A good result in either of these states can propel a presidential hopeful into the consciousness of both voters and pundits. If a candidate doesn’t lay good foundations early in the primary voting process, success at the Super Tuesday primaries – when 24 states simultaneously vote on March 24 – is insurmountable. And this is where the trouble lays for Yang. His fervent supporters are too geographically dispersed across the United States to help him win substantial state votes in the primary process. Although his national numbers are relatively strong in a large field, they’re not as strong in key primary states. His unique cohort of supporters, coined the ‘Yang Gang’, is chiefly made up of young men who spend a good deal of time online. As well as being geographically dispersed, Yang’s supporters span the political spectrum and tick many of the standard ‘unlikely voter’ boxes. In a lot of states, this means Yang supporters will
have to first register as Democrats, and then go out and vote in the primaries. If they live in a caucus state like Iowa, they will have to attend the full hours-long event in person. Although mobilising unlikely voters is a tried-and-tested method of pulling an electoral rabbit out of a hat, it's a trick that looks nearly impossible for Yang to pull off. Unlike stalwart Democrats, Yang won’t be faced with the career-threatening prospect of irking the Democratic establishment by staying in the race when the odds of success have waned beyond the threshold of impossibility. This means that his out-of-the-box ideas will be in the party’s discourse at least until the Democratic National Convention in July 2020. Ideas lingering in the ranks of a Democratic Party that is still finding its feet after the 2016 election could have the inertia to well-outlast the candidacy of Yang. Like Sanders' Democratic Socialism, Yang's Freedom Dividend and artificial intelligence alarmism could yet shape the party for years to come – with or without him. DIARYThe week ahead
EVENT#MeToo's champions in conversationThe MeToo Movement – recipient of the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize – has changed the way we understand and talk about sexual harassment and violence around the world, in homes, public spaces, and workplaces. Tarana Burke began building the movement in 2006 to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly black women and girls, connect to resources for healing, and to establish a survivor-led community of advocates against sexual violence. Tracey Spicer AM spearheaded the movement in Australia, producing award-winning investigations into sexual harassment in media workplaces. The United States Studies Centre will host both Burke and Spicer in conversation with journalist and presenter Jan Fran, to discuss the founding and future of the movement. This event is presented in partnership with the University of Sydney's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Sydney Peace Foundation. DATE & TIME COST Manage your email preferences | Forward this email to a friend United States Studies Centre |